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For more than a year, Dr. Paul Hudson '72 interviewed people, visited museums, and hiked the Stone Mountain trails to research for his book, Atlanta's Stone Mountain. Dr. John Inscoe, editor of The New Georgia Encyclopedia, called the book “a major contribution to Atlanta and Georgia History.”

According to Paul Hudson ’72, an adjunct history lecturer here at OU, “everyone has a Stone Mountain story.” And now, it’s time to tell his.

A native of Brookhaven, Dr. Hudson has spent years gathering information and writing articles about Atlanta’s local history (including Oglethorpe), and now he’s releasing his new book, Atlanta’s Stone Mountain: A Multicultural History.

The 156-page read details the history behind Georgia’s famed granite mass, taking the reader back some 300 million years, before early Native Americans settled the area. Dr. Hudson and his partner, Lora Pond Mirza, then take an in-depth look at how important Stone Mountain was to the Creek-Muscogee peoples, how emancipation occurred in the Stone Mountain area during the Civil War, the struggles of the Confederate Memorial carving, and the unique natural habitat of the mountain. (How can trees and yellow daisies grow in granite?)

Paul Hudson and Lora Pond Miraz

“The best part was meeting so many interesting people,” said Dr. Hudson. “George and Susan Colletti, for examples. He grew up in Stone Mountain and was the nephew of Elias Nour, “the Man of the Mountain” (read our book!)…Then there is Larry Winslett, a talented nature photographer, and so many others including Naomi Thompson, a geologist at the park.”

“[The] most rewarding was the collaborative research and writing, getting great information from people, books, and online, structuring the book around the concept of multiculturalism, securing compelling images—more than 150, including ones off iPhones (from an Oglethorpe alumni couple!), from archives (the Library of Congress and Metropolitan Museum of Art), and a vintage Civil War map (from Thornwell Jacobs’s granddaughter!)—and making it all complement an engaging but scholarly narrative…We did everything in our own unique way and are so proud because we think we nailed it!”